THE VOID

The unexamined life is not worth living.

— Socrates

Well before Alain De Button’s The School of Life, this project set out to marry the idea of philosophy as a supplementary treatment for mental health. The Void's mainstay was a printed booklet, but also included printed and digital communications collateral.

The project connects growing pressures on the mental health sector with a societal departure from reflection. The booklet is intended for repeat sufferers and suggests ways in which difficult times can be reframed through an exploration of values, morals, world views and a desire to see ‘reality’ just as it is.

The booklet utilises the cues of Vanitas painting, and although the images are at first confronting, they symbolise the need to accept reality and stop being meaning making machines.